h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anomie

Hah! Coincidentally I used that word on another thread this week, with a patronising (or so I thought ) note that those those unfamiliar with it might want to look up the name 'Emile Durkheim'.

Yeah...a good word, anomie. A very useful concept.

No coincidence hence the

Read William Leith's The Hungry Years, Julie Myerson's Home and started Will Self's The Book of Dave while on holiday.

The Hungry Years is really an advertisment for the Atkins Diet and a bit of a rant at the global carbohydrate indusry conspiracy. Enjoyed Home but find Will Self's cockney text a tad annoying.

>>No coincidence hence the

So I see. Now.

Will Self is another writer you need a dictionary for. He likes to slip in clever words. He even does it in speech. I reckon he looks up a word every day and manages to slip it into whatever conversation is going.

But Anthony Burgess...some of his words are only in the very biggest dictionaries!

Let's see, words I had to look up:

kudzu (a plant)
chow (a dog - should have remembered that one)
tarheel (still not sure, but North Carolina is the Tarheel State)
cornrows (a hairstyle)

I think there were more. Americanisms mostly.

I'd have known all but tarheel...but wouldn't that have made sense in context?

Kudzu - I *think* that's what they make arrowroot powder out of. I know it can be used to thicken soups (like arrowroot), and that the creeping vine is a major pest in the southern US.

Jaysus! The crap my brain is full of. But can I remember where I put my car keys?

By the way...don't confuse 'kudzu' with 'kudu'. If you put a kudu in soup, it'll jump out.

I always confuse the words 'peccary' and 'pessary'. It can be very embarassing when I'm at the zoo. Even more so at the chemist's.

I just hope I remember kudzu for use in scrabble.

"I'd have known all but tarheel...but wouldn't that have made sense in context?"

Kind of, but imagine someone making reference to a geordie or cockney if you had never heard the terms before. You might make a guess from context but you wouldn't be certain.

Kudzu's not as many points as 'syzygy'. Challenge for today: use the word 'syzygy' in a conversation.

The tide is highest during syzygy.

<<"Ravens of Avalon" (this one by Diana Paxson), but I'm not far enough into it to have an opinion just yet.>>

Oh, I would love to know what you think of it, when you've read it! I was following that series, but I have lost track...

Diana L Paxson was MZB's sister-in law, I believe.

I am currently reading Husk: Path of Revenge by Russell Kilpatrick. It's awesome, and he's a New Zealander!


Vicky

MY first QOTD was a cryptic clue to which the answer was syzygy (taking Icy a matter of minutes) I'm still proud of it.

A moment, unknown, a dimension, unknown, a force, unknown; a meeting. (6)

Ooh! That's rather good!

Danish king in designer label meddled with gravity? (7, 4)

I couldn't get that the first time. It's to do with profanity though, right?

"The Draco Tavern" by Larry Niven, a collection of sci-fi shorts using the setup of a conversational bartender at a joint frequented by aliens, around thirty years in the future (from whenever you're reading it). Lots of room for the aliens to tell tall tales a la "Blade Runner": "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion ..." Also reminiscent of Spider Robinson's "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon" series, e.g. "Time Travellers Strictly Cash". And even the cantina scene in the original "Star Wars".

Edward - There's only two Ys in Scrabble, so you'd have to use a blank for that.

Just finished, on hols, The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, Three Came Home by Agnes Keith and The Outsider by Albert Camus. The Tolstoy has in fact slipped into my Top 10-or-so list on my PS in I think place 8.
On hols I met Jeffrey Eugenidies, a very likeable chap with a comedian's glint in his humorous eye - actually in both of them - and a neat black beard of almost of Taliban clenched fist regulation thickness - and he signed a copy of the excellent novel 'The Virgin Suicides' which the Observer correctly describes as 'One of the finest novels in many years - a Catcher in the Rye for our time - and which I'm currently reading.
Das Parfum or Perfume by Süskind is temporarily on the back gas ring.

Eugenides' 'Middlesex' is marvellous.

'The Death of Ivan Ilyich'...I seem to remember that being praised in a newspaper last week by someone.

And staying with the category of Wouldn't-Life-Be-Weird-If-There-Were-Never-Any-Coincidences...no sooner do I start reading Bulgakov's 'The Master and Margarita' than what should I see in yesterday's Grauniad but:
- An article by James Meek ('The People's Act of Love') on Bulgakov
- Regina Spektor naming TMaM as her favourite book.

Das Parfum - I know L Ll doesn't like the translation of the the title, but last week on TV, Val McDermid was praising the quality of the translation, saying you couldn't tell it wasn't written in English.

Useless fact no. 13256.

Sympathy for the Devil, by the Stones (man) is influenced The Master and Margarita.

Franz Ferdinand cite it as the major influence on their aesthetic.

I think that Keef's soloing on SFTD is amongst the finest moments of Rock n' Roll. Franz Ferdinand, on the other hand are...acceptable. No more.